One of the most researched theories of personality is the Five Factor Model, frequently evaluated through the Big Five Inventory 44-item BFI. Although there is an Arabic version, its psychometrical properties in Kuwaiti population are yet unknown.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the BFI and its factorial structure in an Arabic non-clinical sample.

The participants were 685 first year undergraduate Kuwaitis: 305 males mean age=22.77±4.57 and 380 females; mean age=19.61±2.59). The Arabic version of BFI (John and Srivastava, 1999) was administered to participants. The internal consistency reliability, factor structure, and convergent validity of the BFI with PFQ-C (Barbaranelli, Caprara, Robasca, and Pastorelli, 2003) were assessed.

Internal consistency was satisfactory for the Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness subscales respectively (Cronbach's alpha=0.83, 0.82, 0.79, 0.82, 0.90) for males and (Cronbach's alpha=0.74, 0.83, 0.85, 0.81, 0.92) for females. The results revealed significant gender differences where the males obtained a higher score than females on extraversion and conscientiousness, while females obtained a higher score than males on neuroticism. Principal component analyses (PCA) showed that a five-component solution explains 42.27% of the total variance for males and 41.47% for females. The convergent correlations in sample between the BFI and PFQ-C (mean r=54) for validity coefficients.

These findings suggest that the BFI is a brief measure of the Big Five personality traits and it provides satisfactory reliable and valid data.